


Better off

by chickentine



Series: Tumblr Angst Prompts [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 10:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2426027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickentine/pseuds/chickentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-sunrise in Arctic Edge and Charlie White just really, really wanted to nap</p><p>A Tumblr Angst Prompt fic for footnoterphone</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better off

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Tumblr Angst fic meme and footnoterphone sent in ""Ever wonder if the world would be better off without you… ?"
> 
> Thanks, footy! And thank you for the response for this. 
> 
> I've posted this on tumblr, but I realize I do want my fics all in one place - so here it is!

They were in Arctic Edge before sunrise, sleepless after a night of academic requirements. Going back to competitive skating was not easy, not with both of them hell-bent on finishing their degrees before they turned thirty. But they had eighteen years of experience, after all – it was just a matter of going back.

And they wanted their comeback, so  _so_ badly.

In almost wordless agreement, they decided to nap before Marina came and the rest of the Artic Edge personnel began their daily rounds. The locker room was not an ideal place for a nap after a series of all-nighters. But it was heated, clean, and quiet. It was enough.

In a fit of almost uncharacteristic gallantry, Charlie insisted that Meryl take the long bench while he camped out on the floor. Meryl was not keen on either – she had wanted to camp out in Charlie’s car (it was his turn to carpool that day) but it was  _freezing_ and Charlie had pulled out a couple of sleeping bags that were stowed away and gave her a grin and she just had to begrudgingly agree.

So there they were, lights turned low in the same locker room they spent countless mornings and afternoons pre- and post-training for the last decade. Meryl was tucked in a sleeping bag atop the bench while Charlie was sprawled on the floor. This was nothing new – in their days shuttling between Dancing with the Stars and Stars on Ice, they became nap connoisseurs, finding ways to help each other get much-needed naps without any hint of romantic sentiment (Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner had a few photographs of them with Charlie’s head almost on Meryl’s tiny lap, both mouths agape – but they didn’t need to know  _that_ ).

There was a comfortable silence, punctuated by Meryl tapping away at her phone. She, like any girl of her generation, was glued to social media and even sleep-deprived and cozily ensconced in one of the Whites’ sleeping bags, she just  _had_ to look through her phone, her fan sites, the odd comments here and there, before she drifted into her nap.

Charlie just wanted to  _sleep._

He was tired, Meryl was slurring in her drowsiness, and they had a session of choreography with Marina in a few hours. But Meryl was looking through her phone and he could see the harsh light from it and he knew they  _both_ needed to sleep.

He was opening his mouth to remind Meryl that she was  _human_ and there was no way he was going to dance around with her in a zombie-like state when Meryl suddenly, with a force entirely unexpected of someone in her state of sleep deprivation, flung her phone on the ground.

“Sorry,” he heard her mutter, before curling up and facing the wall, with a barely audible sniff. 

All trace of drowsiness forgotten, Charlie tentatively spoke up. “Meryl, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

This was nothing new to Charlie. He knew what had to be done.

“Alright then. Good night,” he said quietly, kindly, before tossing and turning in his sleeping bag in definite proclamation of his awake state.

As if on cue and true to his plan, Meryl spoke up.

“I don’t know,” she said. Charlie smiled in the dark. His engagement and Meryl’s penchant for Hollywood parties notwithstanding, he still knew Meryl. “I’m looking through my Instagram again. And twitter. And some sites here and there.”

Charlie gave a sound of acknowledgement.

“And and – ” Meryl paused.

“And?”

Charlie heard Meryl’s humorless laugh. “They won’t stop calling me mean things, aren’t they? Apparently the new trend now is that I’m a  _tease._ Because Maks came over to Detroit and we were so busy with school and I didn’t  _meet_ him. I mean how …? How did they even _know_?”

Charlie felt a rush of anger from the pit of his stomach. It has been nearly a year since Dancing with the Stars and so many fans could not seem to  _understand_ that Meryl and Maks simply did  _not_ work out. How could people  _not_ understand that?

Meryl had turned over and was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. Charlie knew he had to  _say_ something. But Meryl beat him to it.

“Ever wonder if the world would be better off without you…?” she said quietly.

Charlie’s heart stuttered to a stop, his anger replaced by a choking tendril of fear.

“ _What?_ ”

Meryl laughed again, humorlessly. “I mean, I can’t seem to do  _anything_ right. We win Worlds, they say it’s undeserved. We lose Worlds, they say our earlier title was a fluke. We win Worlds again and they  _still_ say it’s undeserved.  _Then_ we finally win the Olympics and they even drag  _Putin_ into it. Why can’t I do anything ri – ”

“Mer, I’m your partner too – ”

“And we enter Dancing with the Stars and the things they said about my  _face,_ Charlie! They said I was ugly and that I wasn’t good enough and that we had an unfair advantage.”

Charlie was still terrified, but he was, as he had been countless of times,  _furious_ at the world they were inextricably part of. It was a world that put down their accomplishments in the face of Meryl’s unconventional beauty, the leg extensions she sometimes failed to deliver, his rare slip-ups on ice. Hollywood had been worse and Charlie was glad their stint in it was brief.

Meryl went on. “And I don’t know – maybe they’re right. And now, now that we’re settled in and studying, I’m not  _good enough._  I got a B for my pre-final the other day and I was  _so disappointed._ I want a degree. I want honors and academic accolades. But I want another World title. And  _it’s so difficult._ ”

Charlie tried to keep his voice neutral.

“I don’t think the world would be better off without you because it doesn’t deserve you, Meryl.”

Meryl seemed not to be listening. “It’s just – I know I’m here for a  _reason_. And I don’t want to  _disappear_. People are mean, life’s hard but I – I never thought of anything stupid.”

Charlie let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

“It’s just that,” Meryl went on. “It’s just that sometimes I feel this  _chasm_ of sadness and no matter how much logic I put into it or how much I think it’s not  _supposed to be there,_ I just feel it. And it  _chokes_ me. It’s probably the hormones.” She gave a derisive snort. “I don’t know. It just  _persists._ And I think I know – I want so much from myself. I know we’ve accomplished so much, but I always, I always seem to want more and every time I don’t live up to that, it just kills me inside.”

Charlie’s heart was breaking – he knew Meryl had held an impossibly high standard for herself. He knew of her disappointments, the many ways she pushed herself, the expectations everyone held for her. But this was the first time Meryl had openly  _talked_ to him about it. He wanted to tell her that he sometimes felt that way too, that she wasn’t alone, that what she called the  _chasm of sadness_ was not entirely wrong, that she had the right to feel that way too, that all she needed to do was to rise from it. But telling her to ignore the criticisms wasn’t enough. Telling her to find the brighter side of things wasn’t enough. This felt like something deeper and Charlie had honestly no idea what to do beyond ignoble platitudes that  _it was okay._

Meryl’s hand was dangling from the bench and he wanted,  _wanted_ so badly to take it in his – to take  _her_ in his arms and smooth her hair and tell her that everything  _was going to be alright,_ that he was  _here for her,_ that she wasn’t alone. He had held that hand millions of times across hundreds of rinks, but never beyond the context of their performances or victories.

And now he  _wanted_ to, but he knew he shouldn’t. This wasn’t what Meryl needed. And there was always that sentinel of guilt that came with some unconsciously-ingrained belief that a man set to marry a woman was not supposed to go around intertwining his fingers with another’s. And in a secret he would take to his grave, he knew that once he held her hand, there was that chance, that gigantic chance, that he would never want to part with it.

So he settled for words instead.

“Meryl,” he began. “I can remember one time when I imagined if the world would be better off without me.”

He heard a soft sniffle. “What?”

“I was fifteen, and I pulled this prank on a teacher – I set off the sprinklers and timed it to the exact moment she entered the room and her hair just … fell apart – ” he heard Meryl giggle. “And I got into  _big_ trouble and everyone was so mad at me and in typical teenage angst, I wondered.”

He cleared his throat. “Thing is, the world  _won’t_ be better off without you. Or me. Because every time people try to bring you down, you have to remember that there’s at least one person in the world who  _can’t_ imagine life without you. And their world is  _definitely_ not better off without you.”

He heard Meryl shift. “Charlie, I know there are people who love me, I  _get_ it – ”

“No, Mer,” he said. “There are people who  _can’t imagine life without you._ ”

_Like me._

But he couldn’t say that. Not after everything. Not after the walls they’ve so carefully built between them, the possibilities they’ve sealed off.

“Meryl,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s okay to be sad. I get it. But you have to know – I’m here for you, right?”

He saw her smile a watery smile by the faint light. “Yes, I do.”

“… so if you ever feel sad like this, please  _talk,_ Meryl. Alright?”

He saw Meryl take a deep breath. She turned over and looked him squarely in the eye. “Alright. I’m sorry Charlie.”

He heard what she wasn’t saying.

_I’m sorry for bothering you._

_I’m sorry for this outburst._

_I’m sorry for scaring you._

_I’m sorry you had to give me this_ talk.

“Don’t be. Just… just know that  _we_ love you, alright?” he said, as if the plural could hide how he wanted to say  _he_ loved her.

“I know,” she shifted back to face the ceiling.

There was a moment of quiet.

“I love you, Charlie,” she said quietly.

It was an automatic response, a reflex reaction. It was inevitable – like there was absolutely nothing else that could be done,

“I love you, Mer,” he replied, almost fervently.

Her hand was still dangling so,  _so_ close to his. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine another life in which he could hold that hand freely, in which there was no gaping chasm of unfulfilled possibilities. He tried to imagine holding that hand like there was nothing else he would want to hold for the rest of his life. He wanted to, so  _so_ badly.

He opened his eyes, gave her hand a glimpse, and moved his arm closer, as if he was getting into position to hold it.

But he didn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it! Do leave a comment ;) I've realized that this is my fifth fic for the M/C fandom and it's crazy - I planned just 'Point it Home' as an entry point and now everything's getting out of hand, but it's fun. 
> 
> And I'm on tumblr as infinitelyquintessential (but my main blog is 'francessays' so I leave you an ask there - that's me!) 
> 
> And I've realized - yay, an actual one-shot! (Attached was a one-shot, but this has more of a one-shot feel because the other one was just a feelings outburst)
> 
> AND YES, I CAN WRITE HAPPY FICS (I think most of the chapters on Point it Home end happily - ish) :( I've realized that most of the fics on my profile here are all ANGST. :(


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